Abdullah Hussein

ABDULLAH HUSSEIN (1931–2015) was born Mohammad Khan in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. Hussein (also spelt Hussain) wrote under a borrowed nom-de-plume to avoid confusion with his namesake, celebrated humorist Colonel Muhammad Khan.

Abdullah Hussein shot to fame with the publication of Udaas Naslain, his Urdu masterpiece, in 1964, which he later translated from the Urdu into English as The Weary Generations. He began writing whilst bored with his job at a chemical factory in Dadukhel and worked on The Weary Generations for five years. This debut novel touched on universal themes of love and separation within the context of Partition and war, and won the highly prestigious Adamjee Award.